<>4*®-<  >•«■»- O-OMM  )-i0-<H 


PIONEER  SERIES  — No.  5 


vT 


Melinda  Rankin 

First  Protestant 
Missionary  in  Mexico 

BY 

MRS.  O.  W.  SCOTT 

Price  2  Cents 

‘  ‘  I  seemed  to  hear  the  word 
‘  Forward  !  ’  ” 


WOMAN’S  FOREIGN  MISSIONARY  SOCIETY 
OF  THE 

METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH 
PUBLICATION  OFFICE 
BOSTON.  MASS. 


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Melinda  Rankin 


Have  you  ever  thought  how  missionaries  are  called  ?  It  is  now 
as  in  the  days  when  Jesus  was  upon  earth  and  spoke  to  the  men  who 
were  to  be  His  apostles.  He  said,  “Follow  Me,”  to  the  fishermen 
and  the  publican,  and  they  “left  all  and  followed  Him."  There 
might  have  been  other  men  all  around  Him  who  were  wiser  and  braver 
than  they,  but  He  saw  that  these  were  ready  to  learn  and  to  follow. 

So  to-day  He  says  to  one  here  and  another  there,  “Go  carry  my 
word  to  those  who  sit  in  darkness.”  He  calls  them  sometimes  when 
they  are  young,  like  Samuel,  and  nobody  can  explain  how  it  happens, 
but  such  souls  hear  His  voice  and  are  willing  and  glad  to  obey. 

’Tis  the  willing  hand  God  uses 
To  scatter  Gospel  seed. 

It  was  early  in  the  last  century  ( 1 8 1 1 ),  while  William  Carey  was 
doing  pioneer  work  in  India  and  Robert  Morrison  in  China,  that  a 
little  girl  was  born  among  the  green  hills  of  New  England,  who  was 
destined  to  be  a  pioneer  in  sunny  Mexico. 

Melinda  Rankin  grew  up  and  was  educated  like  scores  of  other 


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New  England  girls,  but  even  while  a  schoolgirl  she  felt  that  women 
could  do  many  things  to  help  the  world  which  they  were  not  expected 
to  do.  By  and  by  she  felt  that  she  was  called  to  do  some  unusual 
work,  and  a  little  later,  when  she  was  converted,  this  feeling  grew 
very  strong. 

She  seemed  to  hear  an  urging  voice,  which  said,  “Get  thee  out 
of  thy  country  and  from  thy  kindred  and  come  into  the  land  which 
I  will  show  thee.”  But  there  was  no  “open  door”  to  foreign  missions 
for  young  women  in  Melinda  Rankin’s  day,  so  she  became  a  teacher  in 
district  school  and  in  Sunday-school,  waiting  quietly  for  further 
direction. 

In  1840  there  came  a  call  for  missionary  teachers  to  go  to  the 
Mississippi  Valley  to  work  among  Catholics  from  Europe  who  had 
settled  there.  Miss  Rankin  heard  and  answered,  “Here  am  I.”  She 
went  first  to  Kentucky,  where  she  taught  two  years,  then  on  to  Missis¬ 
sippi,  where  for  nearly  four  years  she  helped  establish  schools  and 
secure  teachers.  About  this  time  the  war  between  Mexico  and  the 
United  States  closed,  and  soldiers  who  had  gone  from  Mississippi 
returned  home.  From  them  she  heard  about  Mexico,  and  how  its 
people  were  deprived  of  the  Bible  by  a  cruel  priesthood. 

Instantly  she  saw  the  need  and  said,  “I  resolved,  God  helping 
me,  to  go  myself  to  Mexico.”  But  Mexican  laws  prevented  this, 


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and  the  best  she  could  do  was  to  settle  as  near  that  country  as  pos¬ 
sible.  For  a  time  — until  1852  — she  taught  in  Huntsville  Academy, 
then  removed  to  Brownsville,  which  was  on  the  American  side  of  the 
Rio  Grande,  just  opposite  Matamoras,  in  Mexico. 

Here  she  rented  two  rooms  ;  one  to  live  in,  one  for  the  school 
she  wished  to  open  for  Mexican  girls.  The  day  before  she  wished 
to  begin  her  work  she  went  to  her  rooms.  She  says,  "At  dark  I  had 
no  bed  to  sleep  on,  nor  did  I  know  how  I  was  to  obtain  my  breakfast, 
to  say  nothing  of  supper.  But  before  the  hour  of  retiring  came  a 
Mexican  woman  brought  me  a  cot,  an  American  woman  sent  me  a 
pillow,  and  a  German  woman  came  and  said  she  would  cook  my  meals 
and  bring  them  to  me.  Did  I  not  feel  rich  that  night,  as  I  retired  to 
my  humble  cot  ?" 

The  next  morning  she  opened  her  school  with  five  Mexican  girls. 
In  a  short  time  she  had  thirty  or  forty,  but  lived  in  constant  terror 
of  Indians  and  lawless  Mexicans,  who,  she  was  told,  "would  take 
her  life  for  the  dress  she  took  off  at  night."  For  weeks  she  could 
not  sleep,  but  finally  cast  herself  so  fully  upon  her  Heavenly  Father’s 
care  that  she  says  :  "I  slept  as  if  I  knew  a  sentinel  was  placed  at  each 
corner  of  my  dwelling." 

She  also  began  to  circulate  Bibles  among  the  people.  They 
were  eager  to  read  "the  forbidden  book,"  and  soon  hundreds  were 


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in  Mexican  families.  She  was  not  allowed  to  cross  the  river,  but  she 
knew  that  Bibles  were  crossing  it  every  day  in  the  hands  of  Mexicans, 
and  that  they  were  the  “  good  seed,  ”  which  must  bring  a  future 
harvest. 

In  fact,  she  began  to  see  the  harvest  at  once.  She  says,  “  A 
mother  of  one  of  the  little  girls  in  my  school  came  to  my  door  one 
day,  bringing  her  1  saint,  ’  as  she  called  it.  She  said  she  had  prayed 
to  it  all  her  life  and  it  had  never  done  her  any  good,  and  asked  if  I 
would  take  the  saint  and  give  her  a  Bible  for  it.”  Miss  Rankin  did 
this  gladly,  giving  her  two  Bibles,  one  for  herself  and  one  for  a  friend 
in  Matamoras. 

Just  here  we  can  give  Miss  Rankin’s  own  words  from  a  letter 
written  to  Miss  Frances  Baker  of  Michigan  in  1888  for  children,  and 
which  has  never  before  been  published.  She  says  :  “Many  years  ago 
the  writer  of  this  article  heard  that  many  thousands  of  children  in 
Mexico  had  no  Bible,  no  Sunday-schools  and  no  teachers  who  could 
instruct  them  in  those  things  which  our  blessed  Saviour  intended 
all  Christians  should  know. 

“  How  to  reach  those  poor  children  was  a  very  difficult  ques¬ 
tion,  as  the  laws  of  Mexico  proclaimed,  ‘  No  Bible  or  Bible  teachers 
shall  come  into  our  country,  but  everybody  must  be  Roman  Catho¬ 
lic.’  Now  that  kind  of  religion  taught  that  children,  instead  of  going 


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directly  to  the  loving  Jesus  and  praying  to  Him,  should  pray  to 
images  and  pictures  of  saints,  who  could  not  hear  nor  answer  their 
prayers. 

“  This  first  missionary  could  only  get  upon  the  border  of  that 
miserable  country,  and  there  she  opened  a  school  and  taught  hundreds 
of  Mexican  children  of  the  teachings  of  the  Saviour  in  His  holy  word, 
wherein  He  says,  ‘  Suffer  the  little  children  to  come  unto  me  and  forbid 
them  not.  The  Mexican  children  were  not  slow  to  learn  that  the 
Saviour  loved  them  and  that  they  must  obey  what  He  says  in  the  Bible. 

“  This  first  knowldge  produced  a  great  change  in  their  habits 
and  practices.  Now  I  feel  sorry  to  tell  you  that  these  children  would 
lie  and  steal  and  do  many  bad  things,  but  when  they  learned  from 
the  Bible  how  very  naughty  it  was  to  do  such  things,  they  left  off  their 
wicked  practices  and  became  as  truthful  and  honest  as  you,  or  any 
other  children  who  live  under  the  light  of  God’s  word. 

"  After  some  three  or  four  years  those  dreadful  laws  were  changed 
in  Mexico,  and  the  Bible  and  teachers  were  permitted  to  go  and  en¬ 
lighten  those  poor  people  who  had  been  bound  in  chains  of  darkness 
for  hundreds  of  years.  The  first  missionary  lost  no  time  in  going 
into  the  country  and  building  a  big  schoolhouse,  in  which  many  chil¬ 
dren  were  instructed. 

"  The  parents,  too,  gladly  embraced  the  religion  of  the  Bible, 


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and  soon  a  church  was  formed,  which  was  the  first  true  church  in 
Mexico.  Thousands  of  Bibles  were  now  scattered  broadcast  over  the 
land,  and  soon  the  poor  Mexicans  began  to  realize  that  a  brighter 
day  had  dawned  upon  their  long  night  of  darkness.  Churches  and 
schools  sprang  up  all  over  the  country,  and  now  there  are  thousands 
of  converted  Mexicans,  who  are  the  true  followers  of  Christ.’' 

The  “  big  schoolhouse  ”  which  Miss  Rankin  mentions  in  this 
letter,  was  one  she  built  in  Brownsville  with  funds  collected  in  the 
United  States.  This  was  the  “  new  seminary  ”  which  she  entered  in 
1854.  Threats  were  made  to  burn  it  and  kill  the  missionary,  but 
through  these  terrible  trials  she  felt  that  she  was  "shut  up  in  God’s 
pavilion." 

Soon  after  entering  the  new  school  her  sister  came  to  her  help, 
but  three  years  later  she  died,  just  as  Mexico  was  struggling  into 
religious  liberty.  Two  nieces  came  and  were  with  her  when  the  Civil 
war  broke  out,  and  she  was  ordered  out  of  her  seminary  because 
she  sympathized  with  the  North. 

Then  she  took  her  books  and  furniture,  went  across  the  Rio 
Grande  into  Mexico  and  opened  a  school  in  Matamoras,  and  was,  as 
she  says,  “  supremely  happy."  But  the  war  again  interfered  and  she 
went  with  her  nieces  to  New  Orleans,  where  they  worked  in  hospitals 
and  in  the  first  schools  started  for  freedmen. 


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Early  in  1864  Brownsville  was  captured  by  the  Union  army> 
and  back  she  went  to  find  her  seminary  “  badly  damaged  by  gun¬ 
powder.”  She  had  it  repaired,  and  soon  enrolled  sixty  pupils.  The 
next  year  she  left  this  school  to  the  care  of  others  and  went  to  Monterey, 
where  after  three  months  of  thought  and  prayer,  she  decided  to  estab¬ 
lish  the  first  Protestant  mission  in  Mexico. 

Again  she  went  to  the  United  States,  secured  money  and  erected 
the  necessary  buildings.  Miss  Rankin  still  met  persecution,  but  the 
work  grew.  Bibles  were  circulated  by  native  converts  who  went 
from  house  to  house.  Work  was  opened  in  Zacetecas,  three  hundred 
miles  away,  and  a  church  was  built  by  the  Mexicans  themselves,  whose 
membership  was  one  hundred  and  seventy. 

And  now,  after  twenty  years  of  pioneer  toil,  Miss  Rankin’s  health 
began  to  fail.  The  work  required  ordained  ministers,  and  she  must 
yield  it  to  stronger  hands.  In  1872  she  returned  to  the  United  States 
and  gave  her  mission  to  the  American  Board. 

After  a  few  years,  during  which  she  visited  the  Mexican  churches 
and  interested  the  people  in  them,  she  retired  to  her  home  in  Bloom¬ 
ington,  Ill.,  where  she  died,  December  7,  1888,  in  her  seventy-seventh 
year.  The  letter  which  we  have  quoted  was  written  for  Methodist 
children  in  January,  1888. 


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